Friday, July 29, 2016

The Rule of Law Unjustly Manipulated: 4th Circuit Strikes Down NC Voter ID

In a decision that has many at a loss, today the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals held that North Carolina election integrity laws were
enacted with a racially discriminatory intent. The Public Interest Legal Foundation
released
a statement with regard to the decision.

“The trial court conducted the
trial, heard the evidence, and ruled that the law was valid. The Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals behaved like a trial court and decided that the law had a
discriminatory intent,” said J. Christian Adams, President and General Counsel
of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “Normally, appeals courts remand to
trial courts to review the evidence with the guidance of the appeals court. The
Fourth Circuit undertook the job of a trial court and the integrity of the
upcoming election is worse off because of it.”

Among the unusual rulings was
the court holding that Section 5 objection letters by the Obama Justice
Department about other election procedures constituted relevant evidence of
racially discriminatory intent in the voter ID law. Objections are based on a
failure to affirmatively disprove discriminatory intent, not because
discriminatory intent is found.

“This case was brought to
extract partisan advantage using the Voting Rights Act and sadly the plaintiffs
were successful in turning that important civil rights law into a political
weapon,” said Adams.

The concerns raised by the decision are numerous, as the Fourth Circuit acted like a trial court determining evidence and found that the voter ID law and other important election integrity reforms were not enacted for a legitimate purpose.

The three judges
assigned to the case — all Democratic appointees — were unanimous that the
Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature violated the U.S. Constitution
and the Voting Rights Act three years ago by enacting the measure requiring
voters to show certain types of photo ID at the polls.

"The record makes clear that the historical origin of the
challenged provisions in this statute is not the innocuous back-and-forth of
routine partisan struggle that the State suggests and that the district court
accepted," Judge Diana Motzwroteon
behalf of Judges James Wynn and Henry Floyd. "Rather, the General Assembly
enacted them in the immediate aftermath of unprecedented African American voter
participation in a state with a troubled racial history and racially polarized
voting. The district court clearly erred in ignoring or dismissing this
historical background evidence, all of which supports a finding of
discriminatory intent."

There is little that remains to be stated that cannot
be implied from the decision itself. Unorthodox left-leaning decisions not
based on the rule of law are just a prelude to what another four years of
Democratic “leadership” will undoubtedly impose on this country and the judiciary
itself.